The apparatus and method of the present invention relates generally to the separation, weighing, and selecting a combination of weighed groups of elongated articles to form a batch of articles of predetermined weight, followed by the alignment of the articles in such batch and packaging of such batch of aligned articles. In particular, the invention is related to such an apparatus and method in which successive batches of elongated articles are aligned by different alignment systems mounted on a common rotating support. Each alignment system includes a plurality of vibrating conveyor stages which prealign the articles with their axes parallel to the direction of travel before feeding them into an alignment container. The batch of articles are compacted and further aligned in the alignment container with their longitudinal axis substantialy parallel, before the aligned batch of articles is discharged from such container into a packaging machine where such batch is packaged without disturbing such alignment. The apparatus and method of the present invention is especially useful in producing weighed batches of aligned elongated food products, such as french fry potato strips.
Previously it has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,612 of Mikami et al issued Aug. 16, 1983 entitled "Automatic Weighing Apparatus" to provide a separator and scale apparatus for separating a plurality of articles into groups of articles which are fed into scale buckets for weighing such groups. The weighed groups of articles are automatically selectively combined by discharging some of such groups from the scale buckets into a common container chute to provide a batch of articles of predetermined weight in such chute which is discharged into a packaging machine. However, unlike the present invention, there is no alignment system for aligning elongated articles in the weighed batch of articles in the manner of the present invention.
Similar separator and scale apparatus is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,465,150 of Matsumoto, issued Aug. 14, 1984 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,467,880 of Minamida et al, issued Aug. 28, 1984, which are both assigned to the same assignee as the previously mentioned Mikami et al patent. This prior art apparatus employs a computer for selecting those weighed groups of articles which are combined to form a batch of predetermined weight by selectively discharging the scale buckets using computer generated gate signals as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,612 cited above.